Page 47 of Welcome to the Table
He was right. I was trained to kill, but I had left that life back home. Sebastian had trained me with his men as an assassin for the family. I didn’t understand it because they moved weight, not killed people. They had me do that. I kept that hidden. I didn’t tell people where I was from because my family was deadly. One mention of their name, and I was a target, or no one talked to me.
He was right about one thing. I was a trained by the best. That didn’t mean I wanted it, though. The gore and missions I completed, while he trained me, were inhumane. I could perform surgery, and I wasn’t a doctor. I could use any weapon for a kill, including my hands. It wasn’t my choice to learn the shit, but it was forever within me. Some of it traumatized me, but I put it in the back of my head and continued with my life. Nightmares, depression from the innocent people’s lives ending, but for what? Target practice. Being paranoid when around certain shit because I always felt like someone was always watching me.
“Okay, if you been following me all this time and didn’t say shit, what the fuck do you want? I finally feel safe and free, and here you come, fucking it up for me,” I told him.
It was true. Sokko would fuck up a wet dream with his presence. I didn’t need that in my life. I’d had my fair share of hiding, and New Orleans was the one place where I didn’t have to hide because everybody I ran across was chill in their own business. That was until I ran across Hellcat’s sexy ass.
“That same nigga who just came in here like he owned this motherfucker. I want a meeting with him,” Sokko told me, and I looked at him funny.
“Do you even know who the fuck that is?” I asked because I surely didn’t.
I kept a very low profile and only ran into him by accident. Hellcat demanded my attention when I first ran into him. His muscular body and long dreads with the tips dyed red, I knew he was trouble, but my type of trouble. He probably had bitches falling at his feet, and I knew for a fact that I was older than his young ass. He couldn’t know what to do with me. The man exuded power, or he just had the power over me.
When he came banging on my door, I took my time because Sokko had to fucking go. It was enough that he saw us on the elevator and thought we were fucking, or that he was my man. I was just trying to make the nigga jealous, and it worked because his blades were swinging when he noticed me grab my brother’s hand. Little did he know, I hadn’t fucked a nigga since I touched down in New Orleans. His little stunt at the second line and even him on the elevator that led him to my apartment turned me the fuck on, but I knew he was playing the cat and mouse game. I loved it. I knew he wanted this pussy, but he was gon’ make me beg for the dick.
I knew his type. He was a YN, but he didn’t know the games I played. He would learn. I knew he wanted me. That was clear asday, but he wanted me to beg for his dick? Imma have that nigga on his knees, begging me.
“I know enough about that nigga to know he’s part of the Black Guerrilla Mafia, and I need to speak with him. I need you to hook that up. Get inside his mind and make him fall in love with you. Use that nigga to get info on their organization,” he said.
I snapped my neck around and looked at him. I had to make sure I didn’t drop my wine. I wasn’t going to be a pawn in his game.
“What the fuck is that? And what does that have to do with me? Playing with someone’s heart is a dangerous game. Why couldn’t you just talk to the nigga when he was here? You hid in the fucking bathroom like a house mouse. I know you saw the nigga on the elevator. You could have talked to him then,” I told him.
“He doesn’t know me, and I know he does not trust easily, but the way he looked at you, I know you could get inside his head.”
I shook my head. “Get the fuck out of my house. I told you I didn’t want any part of that life. Whatever you got to ask or tell the nigga, do it on your own time,” I told him, pointing to my front door. I meant it. I was over my past life and had moved on. I wasn’t helping do shit.
He walked over to me slow and deadly, but he knew shit from sugar. He backed me against the wall. I set my wine glass on the glass table before he could grab the front of my throat. His mouth was close to my ear.
“If you don’t fucking help me, you will regret it. Sebastian will know everything yo’ ass been doing, and I might lie and say you fucking that nigga. I saw the way he was looking at you, so I know you familiar with him,” he barked in my ear.
I laughed. This nigga must’ve forgotten who I was. I brought my arm down on him and heard his bone crack. He yelped in pain and slowly fell to the floor. I watched with a smile and squatted eye level with him.
“Don’t ever in your pea brain ass fucking mind think about putting yo’ fucking hands on me. You said that shit before, but you must have forgotten who fucking trained me. I don’t give a fuck what you tell our father because that mutt could get a fucking toe tag right along with you. Now, get the fuck out of my house before I break yo’ fucking legs.” I smiled at him before standing and fixing my robe.
He had just activated a side of me that I had left tucked because I despised being like my family. I watched as he slowly got up, and I opened the door for him to exit. He limped toward my door, never breaking eye contact, but the shit didn’t scare me. He took one last look before addressing me.
“You think we’re dangerous? Get caught up with that nigga Hellcat?he won’t spare a bone in your fucking body,” Sokko told me.
I shrugged and rolled my eyes. I didn’t give one fuck about what he was saying, and I wasn’t scared of Hellcat. I didn’t know enough about him to be afraid.
Once he was out my door, I peeked out to make sure he got on the elevator. I’d never known my brother to act that way with me, and it kinda freaked me out, but I didn’t show it. The one thing I remembered was him talking about a fucking implant, and now I needed to get it out. I slammed my door, picked up my drink, and dropped onto my sofa.
His admission of everything had me speechless and confused. I couldn’t wrap my head around what the fuck Sokko had just said. I wanted to go up to Hellcat’s condo and tell him, but I couldn’t trust him. Not yet. He was easy on the eyes, but Ineeded to know where his mind was and if it was worth telling him.
Sokko thought he would blackmail me because of our father, but it would never happen. This was the one time that I wished I had someone I could trust to talk to, but I didn’t. I came to New Orleans to escape, and just like that, my past had crept up on me like a thief in the night.
Chapter 12
Hollygrove
This nigga wasn’t playing about this two-day shit. Hellcat was bent on making Jaci wait to take her shopping like we didn’t have other shit to do. Money to pick up, niggas to kill and threaten, but he wanted to be petty. My phone rang at ten in the morning, and I felt like I had just put my head on the pillow.
Unlike the rest of them, I remained in the hood I grew up in. I just couldn’t leave it. I wanted to make it better. The St. Thomas Housing Development was where I was born and raised. My mother delivered me on the fifth floor of her apartment building with her neighbor, who was a midwife, because she was scared to go to the hospital. She was cracked out and didn’t want the state to take me from her.
My mother was a functional addict. She graduated from college with her Bachelor of Science degree and went on to pursue her nursing degree at the Charity School of Nursing. That is, until she met my father, and he got her hooked on that shit, then left her high and dry, and pregnant. She refused to abort me because she didn’t believe in it. From what Ms. Doretha told me, after giving birth to me, the withdrawals were too much, and it killed her a week after I was born.
I would forever be grateful to Ms. Doretha because she took me in and raised me as her own. The St. Thomas was made up of five buildings. I owned one and had all the walls knocked down and remodeled. Now, it looked like a big ass mansion that Ms. Doretha and I resided in. I fixed the other buildings over time, and she oversaw the financial side of it. She made sure I graduated from high school and went to college. I graduated with my degree as a plastic surgeon and knew one day I would open my own practice, but not in New Orleans. I’d left for a while for my residency in California, and I loved that shit. They treated a nigga like a king, but I missed home, so I came back.
